One thing that I vividly remember from the interview that this site posted with gorgeous plus-size model Kelsey Olson is how transfixed the interviewer was by her eyes:

Quote:

Above all, what transported me were her eyes—so large, so blue, filled with such wonder and delight that I could hardly believe them real. The term “doll’s eyes” is much overused, but never had I see any mortal being with eyes like these. Looking into those eyes, one experienced a soothing sensation, a feeling of calm and peace that cushioned the humbling power of her beauty.

Quote:

I was becoming mesmerized by her beauty, particularly by her round, angelic face and those heavenly eyes. I tried to think of something poetic to say about them, but all that I could manage was a bashful, “Your eyes are very blue—as it turns out.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, chuckling. This was no mystery to her, and she expressed no false modesty about her incredible look.

Even Kelsey herself, who is extremely humble, acknowledges the beauty of her eyes:

Quote:

"There are things that I like," Kelsey said. "Like my eyes. They’re very expressive. And I like my mouth. It’s pretty.”

“They are, by the way,” I sighed, marvelling again at those incredible eyes. “They’re so blue and so open.”

“Yeah, they’re huge!” she beamed, laughing.

“They are.” I was delighted that she was at least willing to praise certain features. “I’m drowning in them.”

“Oh, you,” she said with a smile.

And it's no no wonder. In her pictures, Kelsey's eyes do look astonishingly big and blue. She's like a Disney princess come to life.

Well, I recently came across an article that may explain the secret behind Kelsey's eyes and how she got them.

Kelsey has a Nordic background (German-Danish, as I recall from the interview), and according to this article, it was the environment of Northern Europe, with its long, grey winters, that caused the Nordic people to develop their large, open eyes (as well as their fair skin).

The scientists measured the eye sockets and brain volumes of 55 skulls from 12 populations across the world, and plotted the results against latitude.

Lead author Eiluned Pearce told BBC News: "We found a positive relationship between absolute latitude and both eye socket size and cranial capacity."

The team, from the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, used skulls dating from the 1800s kept at museums in Oxford and Cambridge.

The skulls were from indigenous populations ranging from Scandinavia to Australia, Micronesia and North America.

Eiluned Pearce said: "Both the amount of light hitting the Earth's surface and winter day-lengths get shorter as you go further north or south from the equator.

"We found that as light levels decrease, humans are getting bigger eye sockets, which suggests that their eyeballs are getting bigger.

...The work indicates that humans are subject to the same evolutionary trends that give relatively large eyes to birds that sing first during the dawn chorus, or species such as owls that forage at night.

Co author Prof Robin Dunbar said: "Humans have only lived at high latitudes in Europe and Asia for a few tens of thousands of years, yet they seem to have adapted their visual systems surprisingly rapidly to the cloudy skies, dull weather and long winters we experience at these latitudes."

I love the comparison in the article to birds that "sing first during the dawn chorus." It's lovely to see such a poetic description in a science-based article.

I've always been of the opinion that the unique climate of Northern Europe gave to the peoples living there a unique, moody, romantic character to their culture. But I find it fascinating that this environment shaped their physical beauty as well.

Miss Olson unquestionably has the loveliest eyes of any plus-size model.

I thought Kelsey's fans would like to know that I just discovered that she is represented by a German agency in addition to her Miami and Seattle representation - Clear Models, in Munich. The site doesn't enable direct linking to individual pages, so to find Kelsey, proceed to the plus-size section and click on her name.

The site her measurements in metric as 117d-99-120, which covers to a gorgeous, goddesslike 46-39-47. I've always adored her for her curvy waist, but Kelsey is buxom and has womanly hips as well. A perfect blend of all three figure types.

I hope that Clear Models will obtain her jobs in Germany, given that her look is so quintessentially an expression of German beauty.